


cathexis

by khirimochi (NekoAisu)



Series: posthumous [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Body Horror, Depersonalization, Depression, Dissociation, Gen, Original Character(s), POV Second Person, aint very intense, vague references to amaurotine ahir, ventfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-22 21:34:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21083429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoAisu/pseuds/khirimochi
Summary: There is a voice that screams in the night, demanding without cease,"Let us go home! What a lie you live!"And you ignore it, as per usual, because there is nothing else to do but be swallowed by the feeling of wrongness that follows.





	cathexis

**Author's Note:**

> is this nonsense? very possibly  
do i take criticism on this? no, not at all
> 
> mind that there is a good amount of depersonalization and dissociation going on. while this is based off my own experiences fairly heavily, there is always a chance that it could hit too close to home for others and cause them discomfort. tread safely.

There is a great chaos that comes with awareness of the self. It speaks in tongues and hisses at your familiarly unfamiliar reflection. 

_ Who is this person staring at me in the mirror? What is so wrong that I have forgotten how I look? _

There are hands you can use to hold and to hurt, but they look strange. Alien. D e t a c h e d. You follow from finger to wrist and up, up,  _ up  _ the arm. It connects at the shoulder. 

Whose torso is it attached to? Are you joyriding? The body matches the arms, the hands, the near intangible taste of that unfamiliarity. You breathe and the body follows suit. In. Out. In. Holding for a long moment. Out. In. Their ribs are clear to see. You wonder,  _ whose bones do I reside in? _

The reflection smiles when you tell it to, but the motion is stilted, foreign,  _ incorrect.  _ Your teeth are not so sharp, so small, so useless. A feeling swells, great and aching within your breast, and you become an acolyte to the sensation, reverent and lonely. It screams without a voice. 

_ “I want to go home.” _

You know that “here” is not home, but have no map to follow. There are no stars to chart from within stone walls, much less when wrapped in an embrace. You allow others to take liberties with the body you reside in simply because it feels far away. Their touch cannot burn if it is kept at bay with the buffer of distance.

Completing tasks feels like commanding an army, relaying messages in double time only to have the responses take hours, days, weeks. Laundry piles up in a corner. You look at it. It needs to be done, but you can’t force yourself to do it.

Hundreds of other tasks spit and stare. Accusing. K’hiri bustles through your room to clean, there and gone in a blink. You ignore them and try to look at your reflection again.

It is still not you. The face is all wrong in ways you cannot place, just that it is not  _ right.  _ You watch very carefully when those ghostlike limbs pick up a pair of scissors, grab a piece of hair, and cut it short with a callous chop. Bits of red flutter to the ground. You feel lighter, the tether to this body less intense. 

The process is repeated ten and one more times. The feeling is the same every time. You float above it all, an amateur puppet master playing at being there, being  _ engaged,  _ that when the scissors are put aside and you see the face in the mirror again… 

It frowns, brows drawn together like a god-given rotten tribute, and says, “Why do you hurt yourself so, child mine?”

And you inhale sharply, head knitting back together with body for the first time in  _ weeks, _ just in time to see that power shed a single tear and vanish. You feel wetness slip down your cheek.

You are a waking god.


End file.
